Two White Sisters in Asia: Israel and Australia

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â€œIsrael has not fully acknowledged the value of working together with Australia in Asia. Itâ€™s a way for us to cooperate with and enhance our position in countries neighboring Australia.â€

Naftali Tami - Israeli ambassador to Australia

In a recent interview published in Haaretz, Naftali Tamir, the Israeli ambassador to Australia, articulates a perennial need for â€˜whiteâ€™ collaborators that has defined the Zionist project since its inception.

He speaks bluntly of an Israeli partnership with Australia, founded on racial solidarity, to â€œenhanceâ€ Israeli influence over East Asia. Only perhaps in the nineteenth century could a Western diplomat have spoken so plainly about race as the basis of a political alliance. Infinitely better armed against their Arab victims, the Israelis have no need for caution. They can dispense with diplomacy, with political correctness.

The Israeli ambassador feels no compunction in speaking the language of racial stereotypes. â€œIsrael and Australia are like sisters in Asia,â€ he says. â€œWe are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We donâ€™t have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not â€“ we are basically the white race. We are on the western side of Asia and they are on the southeastern side.â€

The Israeli ambassadorâ€™s plan is ambitious. With Israel dominating the
western flanks of Asia and Australia anchored off the east of Asia, it
appears that these two white sisters have all of Asia cornered. The
plan is malicious too. It expects to appeal to, and deepen, Australian
anxieties about the growing power of people with â€œyellow skin and
slanted eyes.â€ If necessary, the ambassador can also remind the
Australians how they got to be in Asia: like the Israelis, they too had
the power to steal other peoplesâ€™ land.

There is little that is surprising in any of this. The appeals to white
racism, the claims of racial or civilizational solidarity with the
West, have been the foundations of Zionist success since movement first
proclaimed its colonial aims in 1895. Israel has succeeded by taking
advantage of, and by constantly arousing and deepening, Western racism
especially as it relates to Arabs and Muslims.

Israel has succeeded by encouraging the darkest instincts of the West.
The leading Western powers had vital interests in the Middle East,
especially with the discovery of oil in the early twentieth century. By
dovetailing their own colonial project with Western imperialism, the
Zionists imposed a more deadly imperialism on the region. In the words
of Sir Ronald Storrs, the British governor of Jerusalem, Israel would
be â€œâ€™a little loyal Jewish Ulsterâ€™ in a sea of potentially hostile
Arabism.â€ As it turned out, the â€œJewish Ulsterâ€ has been neither
â€œlittleâ€ nor â€œloyal.â€

In the early decades after its creation, Israel had few friends in
Africa and Asia. Israel sought to break through this isolation by
forging close ties with other colonial-settler states â€“ South Africa
and Rhodesia â€“ and right-wing military dictatorships in Latin America
and Africa. It supplied arms, intelligence, and military training to
these countries. Israelâ€™s relations with South Africa were the closest.
It helped the apartheid state to develop nuclear weapons in the 1970s.
Israel also helped South Africa evade the mandatory arms embargo
imposed by the UN Security Council in 1977.

Israel also encouraged the colonial powers to create new white settler
states in Africa when they faced nationalist resistance in their
colonies. In 1960, when the Algerian resistance against the French
occupation of their country was at its peak, David Ben Gurion urged the
French President Charles de Gaulle to carve out a white settler state
in coastal Algeria after expelling all indigenous Algerians. Luckily,
both for the Algerians and France, de Gaulle ignored Israelâ€™s
self-serving advice.

Israel understands too well that alliances based on interests alone are
risky. Interests are a fickle thing. In order to protect itself against
shifting interests, the Zionists have sought to create and deepen new
emotional ties with Western audiences. Since the early twentieth
century it has given encouragement to a new-fangled theology in the
United States that looks upon the creation of Israel as a necessary
prelude to the Second Coming. These Zionist Christians now constitute
Israelâ€™s faithful foot soldiers in the Republican Party.

In more recent decades, Israel has presented itself increasingly as the
West's secular crusader state. It wraps itself in Western values. It
ceaselessly reminds Western audiences that it is the â€˜only democracyâ€™
in the Middle East. Many Westerners are willing to excuse Israeli
excesses against Palestinians as a small price for preserving a Western
'democracy.' More likely, many more see Israel as the last white
outpost in the world of colored peoples, valiantly holding back the
hordes of brown, fanatical Muslims. As these perceptions have taken
root â€“ with daily proddings from an Israel-friendly media â€“ defending
Israel has become a vital Western interest.

With unrivalled Western dominance in the 1990s, Israel began to break
through its isolation in the Third World. Most of the non-Muslim
countries in Sub-Saharan African were persuaded to recognize Israel. In
1991, the US brought pressure on the UN General Assembly to revoke its
resolution of 1975 which equated Zionism with racism. Unofficially,
most Arab countries ended their boycott of corporations that do
business with Israel. Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania recognized Israel. A
few Gulf Arab countries established informal relations with Israel.

More recently, however, the winds have been blowing in a new direction.
The US invasion of Iraq, so strongly pushed by Israel and its allies
inside the United States, has produced a few unforeseen consequences.
Islamist Iran now openly contests both the US and Israel in the Middle
East. The US- and Israel-friendly Arab regimes appear to be running out
of time. In the summer of 2006, Israel eroded its deterrence power in a
war it could not win against the Hizbullah. In Latin America, the
United States is unable to roll back the new shift towards the left
driven by the growing assertiveness of indigenous Americans. The region
is not as friendly to Israel as it had once been under right-wing
dictators. In several European countries too, the changing Muslim
demographics do not bode well for unconditioned European support for
Israel.

Perhaps, it is this changing global scenario that is causing some
Israelis to emphasize their root constituency: white solidarity. Is
this why Ambassador Naftali Tamir is advising Israel to forge a deeper
partnership with Australia? It is possible that deep down, some
Australians too feel beleaguered among a 'sea of Asians,' even though
no Asian country threatens Australia. Perhaps, the Ambassador speaks as
an insider. Perhaps, that is why he thinks it might be a good idea to
exploit these Australian fears. It would be good policy, he argues, for
Israel to â€œcooperateâ€ with Australia â€“ her â€œwhite sisterâ€ off the
eastern edge of Asia â€“ to â€œenhanceâ€ its â€œposition in countries
neighboring Australia.â€ Is this a signal to Australia that with Israeli
support it should start casting its gaze -- beyond small fries like
East Timor â€“ to Malaysia and Indonesia?